Abstract

The emission of light from whispering-gallery modes excited in microscopic spheres is examined. An evanescent wave is produced by total internal reflection of an optical beam at a planar glass–air interface. This evanescent wave is used to excite whispering-gallery modes in single microscopic spheres placed behind the glass–air interface. The intensity of light emitted into the air half-space from such spheres is measured as a function of scattering angle for both p- and s-polarized input beams. These data are compared with a simple theory for the emission from a point source above a planar glass substrate.

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